I'm not as lucky as Marie (most recent reply below) and have been unable to even reset my preferences on CS4, v 6.0.5 on XP to see if it solves my problem.

- I first tried using the 'free script from inTools.com to backup & store multiple sets of preferences' - but as per my reply several days ago after your response (ref http://forums.adobe.com/message/3108156#3108156) We downloaded & installed the Preference Manager folder in my Scripts as directed, but although it was an option at the end of the Preferences menu it was greyed out so inaccessible. (same as Export to Digital editions from individual doc or book, which is what I am trying to do). I don't even know how clean the epub file will be if I get there, but the PDFs I convert through external software still have too many errors to correct.

- As there was no reply yet I thought I'd bite the bullet & have a go at your previous suggestion & rename the InDesign Defaults & InDesign Saved data files, but I can only find the first one, now renamed OLD-InDesign Defaults in same place - hope that is OK.

- I do not have a CACHE folder after my English language folder, nor can I see 'InDesign Saved Data' file in any of the other folders. re Windows XP: C:\Documents and Settings\<USER>\Local Settings\Application Data\Adobe\InDesign\<Version #>\<Language>\Caches\

I really don't want to lose all my print & doc presets formats, styles, etc which have evolved over some time now and can't remember how i created most of them)

HELP PLEASE. WHAT TO TRY NEXT?

Sylvia

PS I'm trying a reply here rather than my original query as this is the bit that won't work now, but may reply there too in case someone else sees it and can help.

If you found InDesign Defaults where I said it was by default, you should look again for the SavedData file. You can also do a regular file search for InDesign SavedData and include hidden files and it should show up.

I'm afraid there is no way to replace your prefs WITHOUT losing document and printer presets. They are stored inthe InDesign Defaults file and will need to be reloaded, hence the advice to back them up first.

Sorry - just found an extra level in the path -' Local Setting's before Application settings. I was looking in the same place as for InDesign defaults - it looked so similar!. With help from my husband it all seems clearer now & we have Backed up (SAVED) the printer & document presets, so hopefully able to load them back after changing name of 2 files & reloading just those files.

Could you please confirm that format styles, colours etc will not be affected?

If you've edited the default [Basic Paragraph] or added any other default styles or swatches (these would appear in the panels with no documents open and all ne docs) you may need to reload them from an exisiting file, but that's not a big deal.

We went ahead and did all that was suggested, reloaded print & document presents and I now have Export for Digital Editions working from single files and from books. Thanks so much. :-)

My text styles, colours used and other object, swatch styles, etc seem OK within my documents, so I guess I have not edited defaults (too much).

The resulting e-pub file does have images in wrong places and a few formatting errors but has stripped headers and footers, coped with Greek lettes and is better than from a PDF converter I found. I have read and printed off details about anchoring my images, creating TOCs, etc which is my next task.

I did find an epub editor called Sigil which may make editing from the resulting file easier for me.

Sorry, no, though it's usually related to something else running on your system, I think. I run a lean, uncluttered and all work system and almost never need to replace prefs. Other users report doing so as often as evry few weeks or more (whcih would cause me to think I needed a major system overhaul).

thank you. i will try this method. i did not see it until i was searching for a way to stop getting all thoseforum messages from the original forum. can you help me to do that? thanks, will let you know what happens.

Hi Peter, thanks for the paths for replacing the ID-Files. I am working on Win7 64Bit with complete German CS5 installed. My InDesign crashs on Launching while the last message is "Starting up Service Registry" as also posted in this thread:

The file won't exist until after a succesful launch. Has it ever loaded correctly?

Are you patched to 7.0.3?

Starting Up Service Registry usually means a probelm with SING, I believe. In addition to renaming the SING folder, try removing the sing.apln plugin from <program directory [probably Program files x 86]>...\Adobe InDesign CS5\Plug-Ins\Text

Hi, my ID Version was 7.0.2 so I downloaded and ran the update and now the version is 7.0.3.535. But still the same crash....

I also tried renaming the SING-Folder - theres only Adobe->Abobe InDesign->Plug-Ins->Text->(SING Resources) is this the right one??

and renaming/removing sing.apln...

...and I really don't know what to do anymore.... ist there any logfile or sth. like this that can be checked?

I think it did launch after I installed it.... 'cause I also copied a link on my desktop and usually do this when I checked the program running... but maybe I'm wrong about this.... don't know now, it was some month ago :-(

Hello, thank you sooooooo much for this post. It was immensely helpful. I have just downloaded the CS5 trial of Indesign. All seemed to be with the install until I tried to use my colour swatches and I realised that they they were all "greyed" out. I then proceeded to check my tables meus and I realised that I didn't have any functionality at all At first I thought, ah must be the free trial, but I remembered using a free trial before of one of the earlier versions and I had full functionality.

Thankfully I found this post. I did try the manual reset of the preferences orginally, but I couldn't locate the files I needed to copy. (I did select "show hidden files" and I am using Windows 7).

So I opted for using the "Ctrl + Alt + Shift" method (while having all my toes crossed and shutting my eyes & hoping for the best!) Hey presto it works (so far anyway!

What Mac preferences are you talking about? There are preferences for each application, and many, many different Apple preferences. Most of them are in <home>/Library /Preferences. Some are in /Library/Preferences.

If you wanted to actually erase all your Mac preferences, you would do a clean install of your operating system and then reinstall all your software.

I'm only loosing preferences for InDesign. When I start up sometimes, everything is reset. I have now saved out all my print and document settings to make it a little easier, but I was wondering if there is a fix for this and if not, how can i replace these settings from a my backup disk. I use time machine.

So for the past few weeks, I haven't been able to use my tool bar, my control bar, or any other boxes (character, paragraph...) in CS5. I have an arrow, and they are not grey, but I cannot click anything. I replaced the 2 files, and I now have use of my toolbar (THANK YOU) but everything else is still not working. I also upgraded to the latest everything. Does anyone (PETER) have any idea what the problem is? Thank you very much.

Autocorrect seetings seem to be an xml file in your user profile under the Autocorrect subfolder, and user dictionaries have a .udc extension (you decide where they are stored, I believe), so you should be able to search for and back up both. I don't personally use either one, so I wouldn't stake my life on it, but as far as I know they won't be affected by a prefs replacement, at least not the manual method.

I was able to print out two spreads and they printed fine.. got to the third spreadone and all spreads after are printing with the guides showing in the PDF.. Has anyone seen this before. If so is there a solution?

The guides are not visible or turned on in the actual In Design document. I tried saving under a different name. I tried saving just the pages that I wanted to print, I tried export but when I export another little wierd problem occurs.. I am getting a random block of color in a place where I dont have anything. I think the two problems are related. I tried to reduce the size of the images on the pages and still nothing works.